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by notabadday



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 04:31:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4550559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notabadday/pseuds/notabadday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Fitz had a phone call. From home. His mother passed away.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Jemma is busy hurriedly undoing the protective black vest under which she’s been overheating when Coulson approaches her, the ripping of velcro concealing the sound of his feet. She’s disembarking the quinjet alongside Skye, May and Hunter. It’s only a pause she notices in the conversation - some teasing of Hunter for missing a shot at their target - that prompts her to look up and notice him. He’s wearing an expression that she’s come to know well. It’s the breaking bad news face. His expression is solemn, though his eyes are kind; that look of concern is enough to give him something to be concerned about as Jemma’s mind moves into panic mode, already organizing the what-ifs into strategies, formulated plans for every possible eventuality. She’s already solved every problem he can possibly give her.

 “Fitz had a phone call. From home. His mother passed away.”

 Except that.

 Jemma blinks at him blankly. She swallows. She reassesses. Skye, May and Hunter, are beside her, heads turned to look at Jemma, each with some variation of Coulson’s concerned expression etched on their faces. No one says a word.

 Skye reaches out to place a supportive hand on Jemma’s back but before it lands, Jemma speeds past Coulson to make a quick path to Fitz’s bunk. It doesn’t occur to her that he’ll be anywhere else. She tries to ignore the near-crippling ache in her chest, tries to fend off the tears sitting on her waterline. She locks herself up. Her release will come later; it must wait. It must.

 Fitz is lying on his bed when Jemma gets to his room. He has his arm covering his face and is lying towards the wall, but it’s him. She can identify him by the stripy socks poking out from the bottom of the comforter, socks his mother had given him. Jemma remembers Fitz’s eye roll and his smile as he’d taken them out of their packaging. She takes a deep breath, but it hitches. Her head shakes a little in the struggle. It’s a shake to brush off her own feelings; she fights them off in the privacy that the wall between them affords her. And then she attempts to disassemble it, picking up a corner of the comforter and sliding underneath. She moves one arm around him, slides the other beneath him, and feels his chest rise and fall against her in small, silent sobs.

 It’s a long time before either one of them says a word. Jemma holds him, knowing the strength he’s given her in every vulnerable moment she can remember, and hopes that she can give some piece of that back to him.

 “She was the only family I had,” he weeps quietly. “I know what you’re gonna say, but if it all fell apart, I had a home to go to. And now I’m just me. It’s been just me and my mum. All this time.”

 “I know.”

 “I don’t know how to grieve all of her. It’s just me. There’s no one else to grieve, to share the burden of this… pain or, I don’t know, to just understand who she was and to remember her. And there are things I forget. It’s just me,” he repeats, his voice cracking. He sounds out of breath, unable to speak and cry in unison but attempting to nevertheless, or unable to prevent himself. “I have to remember her. But what if it slips away? In pieces. In ways I don’t notice. It’s just me.”  

 “I’ll carry this with you, Fitz. I’d carry it _for_ you, if I could.” Jemma hugs him a little tighter, feeling him still a little within her embrace and feeling heartened. “You know what I think about when I think about your mum?”

 She pauses for a beat, but doesn't wait for a response.

 “I remember when, after I told her I’d read all the Harry Potter books over the summer, she knitted me that jumper. You know, with the ‘J’ on the front? Like the Weasley jumpers? And I was so excited, and the whole time I spent on the phone with her, thanking her…”

 “Hours.”

 “…she never once mentioned that she’d learned to knit just to make it.”

 “Yeah, I told you, didn’t I?” he replies, lured in. “You wore that jumper-”

 “-constantly. Yeah,” she smiles. “She was ever so nice. Jumper or no jumper, she always wrapped me up in warmth, your mum. You know, now that I’m thinking about it, I can’t think of any person who’s given me better gifts. I have a lot to thank her for.”

 Fitz cries a little more, wiping his face against the pillow before he whispers gently, “Thank you.”

Holding him for herself now too, Jemma rests her head against Fitz’s back. Now that his chest is calm, his tears still, he feels solid against her. She wonders how he can possibly question his strength, after everything. In her smallest voice, she says, “You are _home_ … to me.”

 Fitz's hands find Jemma's, covering them. He wishes, in this quiet moment, he could just live inside her embrace, a burst of warmth overwhelming him as his palms linger over the backs of her hands. It's the first time he's felt like living since he heard the news. The first time. 

After a moment - one he will savor just long enough to carry him through his darkness - he moves her hands apart to allow himself to turn and face her. He shifts against the pillow so that they are lying at the same height, eye-to-eye. The sight of Fitz's tear-stained face prompts Jemma to move her hand to his cheek, affectionately brushing half-dried tears away with her palm. He's looking at her, desperate sadness mixing with admiration and love. They are locked in a stare, her pain now looking him straight in the eye, unhidden and honest. He shifts forward slightly and watches as Jemma instinctively does the same. She moves her forehead to rest against his.

There they stay. Still.


End file.
